2k Pulse Barrage

[chapter master 454]

So thinking about a list for tau, wanted to lean into a bit of the "keep shooting" idea and opt for some form of it being competitive, it may get used as a future league list, with a model count over 90 and 80 of those being in fire warriors (well, 20 are pathfinders sue me) the list is actually light on anti-tank because the idea isn't about quality of fire but quantity.

 

3 Detachments, Tau Sept

Supreme Command

Battalion

Patrol

 

Stratagems:

Promising Pupil x2 (-2CP)

Emergency Dispensation (-1CP)

 

Starting CP: 7

 

HQs

Shadowsun, Dispersed Fusion Blasters. Warlord: Exemplar of Kauyon

 

Etheral on Hover Drone, 2 Marker Drones, Relic: Humble Stave, Innvocations: Sense of Stone, Wisdom of the Guides

 

Cadre Fireblade

 

Cadre Fireblade, 2 Marker Drones, Promising Pupil: Through Boldness, Victory

 

Enforcer Commander, 2 Marker Drones, Relic: Onager Gauntlet, Prototype Weapon: Thermoneutronic Projector , Promising Pupil: Precision of the Hunter

 - Loadout: Tau Flamer, Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Fusion Blaster

 

Coldstar Commander, 2 Marker Drones, Prototype Weapon: DW-02 Advanced Burst Cannon

 - Loadout: High-Output Burst Cannon, Burst Cannon, Tau Flamer, Airbursting Fragmentation Projector

 

 

Elites

Crisis Suit Team (1 Shas'Vre, 4 Shas'Ui), All armed with the same weapons, differences in additional wargear. All armed with: Tau Flamer, Burst Cannon, Airbursting Fragmentation Projector. Squad has 2 Marker Drones

Shas'Vre has the Prototype AFB and target lock

1 has an Early Warning Override

1 has a Shield Generator and Iridium Armour

2 have Target Locks

 

 

Troops

3x Strike Teams

3x Breacher Teams

 

 

Fast Attack

2x Pathfinder teams, 3 rail rifles and 1 grenade launcher

 

 

Dedicated Transports:

3x Devilfish

 

 

So the list is aimed to take advantage of a very aggressive Mont'Ka go of it. With 30 bodies in the backfield and 30 getting driven up to your front door with 20 being midfield trouble the list is very much geared with mass firepower. Tau Sept means auras of my cadres and commanders reach much further and should let me affect all of my Fire Warriors, the choice of going for Through Boldnes, Victory (TBV) is purely because Exemplar of Mont'Ka is a command phase power and the Cadre with no gear is actually intended to be in a Devilfish with a squad of Breachers and so opting to have a second copy of Pulse Onslaught (6s on hit auto-wound) seems fairly good for the strike teams who will be forming up the backline. The etheral is also intended to help with getting some actions done early, making one squad a little harder to shift and still able to provide firepower while getting any objectives done.

Not expecting the devilfish to get far, especially the one with the Cadre in it but with Mont'Ka pre-move, should mean he should still be able to affect all squads I want him to affect.

 

Pathfinders are to just be on the flanks, being annoying and add whatever they can. The markerlights are nice but if they die, not bothered. Mont'Ka lets them use those rail rifles as well without worry.

 

Crisis suit team is...actually the least thought out part really. Kind of just there because points and I wanted something else to help be a good anchor unit or option select for deep striking. More of a supporting part of the strategy than anything.

 

Melee commander is the only real dedicated "anti-tank" of the list. He's there to get stuck into units as the breachers do the shooting, hopefully meaning that he will get to be the charging party, rescuing the breachers from poor life choices (for the greater good).

Also shadowsun helps up front too.

Meanwhile the backline gets the coldstar commander who is just straight up there to offer extra dakka and re-rolls.

 

The list is banking on getting extra shots, abusing the various buffs the central fire warriors can get and let that do the work. Anything extra stubborn can have various extra pieces thrown at it like left over devilfish or the Crisis suit team can act tough and make it look like they will do something about it. This list is, again I stress a death by 1000 cuts.

Thoughts?

[Tawnis]

You're right about the list being light on anti-armour. My recommendation would be to outfit your Crisis team to fill that role. You've already got lots of anti-infantry with all your fire warriors and Pathfinders, how about putting some Fusion blasters/plasma rifles on the crisis suits to give them more of a punch? 

 

This is just me, but I REALLY don't like the devilfish (or most transports for that matter). Unless you can hide all three somehow, you're pretty vulnerable to having them shot up early on and stranding your units anyway, while killing some. The weapon got a nice upgrade, and the pre-game move is good, but still, 95x3 points is a lot. If you're going all in on the infantry there, why not take those 285 points and get another 30 fire warriors that are already advancing and shooting with Mont'ka, or 40 Kroot and a pair of shapers for 290 if you're worried about contesting the midfeild on turn 1 with the pre-game move? (Without Dal'yth you can't use Mont'ka with them which would suck, but you could still take the WT on a Shaper that allows them to advance and shoot. Then again, with so much infantry, giving them all light cover with Dal-Yth would be pretty good). If you went this route and keep your crisis teams in reserve, it effectively makes all your opponent's anti-armor far less effective while you can in turn focus on shooting up all their obsec units and fight the objectives. 

Edited February 23, 2022 by Tawnis

[MegaVolt87]

285 points for three transports? I think I found points for your AT capability. 

[chapter master 454]

The list is currently a theorycraft with no field test yet sadly. 

 

The devilfish actually offer the unique position of always letting me forward my breachers up the board, you can't shoot them down turn 1 and say "ha, now walk". No, my breachers already have (technically) 12" of movement given to them already. 9" pre-game + disembark, even on getting nuked. Bear in mind you won't have just 3 devilfish looking at you, there is also 20 pathfinders and while yes 3 devilfish and 20 pathfinders ain't exactly an earthshaker of an ender, we are talking 53 models in the Mid-field before we said go.

 

In terms of anti-tank, I believe in this game you don't need much. So far, in my experience with my Imperial knights in a league I have had little need for massive anti-tank guns. By all accounts I find myself often just throwing big guns into smaller targets because there isn't anything else viable really. When I need anti-tank, I have my commander and shadowsun to begin work on that + a relentless flood of firepower.

 

That being said, there are variant lists in the works. However it doesn't change the baseline ideas, if I need anti-tank I even tag them with EMP grenades (them fancy grenade launchers on the pathfinders...deal with them...or the breachers...pick) and just work the body making them less effective or I throw my designated commander at the issue. Main considerations really are things like actually cutting shadowsun funny enough. She's a warlord trait hog (because I gotta be the warlord meh...actually a straight up downside to her imo) and while she is a bit of a time traveller, preferring 8th edition character targeting rules she doesn't offer much to my army style overall. Those points could then be put into the crisis team because fun story: They are an after thought!

Yes, the unit every is going bananas for after broadsides is an afterthought. They literally just squeak in the points hence they maybe odd looking load-out. Donating one shadowsun can arm one crisis suit team with actual weapons and not water pistols, please...donate today! It is an option and also opens up another warlord trait which would be the Exemplar of Mont'Ka for the other Cadre fireblade who rides in the devilfish. Not doing diddly squat turn 1 but thanks to combat disembarkation, he thankfully can turn 2.

And that is also the reason for taking 3 devilfish. On bad days the breachers get their transports blown up and that's bad, but on good days they get to be in the opponents face turn 1, blocking any advance forward and point blank them with blasters, that's good.

 

The whole is heavily inspired by Siegler's Mechanicus army he used. Opting for mass firepower instead of quality firepower, looking to play around with other things and test various pieces of kit out other than just going "haha broadsides" which everyone is doing and while I see it works, I like testing things. You may see a future list with custom sept and piranhas at some point and you all won't like it because everyone is a assault monster army.

I do find the lack of faith in use for the transports somewhat discarding, because they also add another layer of redundant re-roll auras for my fire warriors. It may be overkill but having sure fire knowing that I have re-roll 1s to hit is really nice.

 

I will try and wiggle the crisis suits to get something heavier on them however can be difficult. Plasma Rifles are easy, cutting the proto-AFB is also possible along with the drones to try and get some fusions in there too. Personally thinking I may actually trim the the proto-flamer off the commander as well for that. 

 

I will also point out Tawnis, just to clarify: I hate Kroot. They are dumb and smelly and I don't like them ;P But seriously though I do see that as a viable option but ultimately all they do is make a lot of what opponents bring more effective. Kroot aren't viable threats by themselves and are quickly bodied despite their aggressive front footing. While the Devilfish do give the opponent something for their AT to target, they aren't going to down 3 devilfish in 1 round unless they brought excess of it (in which case I am already on the front foot, mass infantry).

And if we are being honest the real reason I dismiss the Kroot (on top of actually yes, I don't like them personally. Just me. I'm here for mecha, not knock-off predators!) is I can't be bothered painting that many kroot nor buying that many kroot. As much as I like trying to be competitive and a little sweatlord, in truth I am about expressing oneself to the most of their ability with what they like. This list is actually against the grain for me, mass infantry isn't my normal forte (I'm more of a "3 land raiders" kind of guy!) and so while I do actually have the infantry within the list in my collection (only missing the devilfish, I have 1 and 2 are on their way but delayed...sad) I am not going to get models I don't like.

 

However I would welcome you to test your version if you like. While I don't like them, I do think they are somewhat slept on in Dal'Yth. Not sure what way to build them and not going to put too much effort there (got bigger robots to field and fun memes to consider...like fielding R'Varnas hahaha...ohhh that hurt...).

Certainly would look at the field as being quite...busy. Not sure how the game would go in the mirror but mirror matches are never a good measure for a list...often just a "who got first" game.

 

Also...devilfish actually look good. Unlike Primaris tanks!

[Malakithe]

Yeah theres something about wasting points on boxes that just move infantry and act as road blocks kinda bothers me. I honestly hate transports in every faction...well the exception to that is ork stuff cuz they can shoot out of them and use them to ram stuff lol kinda funny ork transports have the most utility.

 

I do like your idea of just crazy massed infantry firepower. With the old book I was doing something similar with combining the old bork bork + fireblade + pulse accel drones to spit out a crazy amount of shots.

 

 

Now you have me looking over my theory list lol might actually drop the 'haha broadsides' in favor of strike teams or breachers

Edited March 4, 2022 by Malakithe

[Malakithe]

Also if your wanting sheer numbers have you considered the Ghostkeel + 12 Gun drones. Drone Controller onto the Drones to get BS 4+ then unleash 48 pulse carbine shots lol